Some quotations this month from Oswald Chambers’ ‘My Utmost for His Highest’, originally published in 1927 by his wife, and still a global bestseller. Chambers trained at the Royal College of Arts, before turning to theological training and a life of church ministry. I’ve found his unflinching single-mindedness awe-inspiring, a trait and habit that I aspire to both as a creative and as a Christian.
The one all-important thing is that the gospel of God should be recognised as THE abiding reality. Reality is not human goodness, or holiness, or heaven, or hell – it is redemption.
31st January
The most important rule for us is to concentrate on keeping our lives open to God. Let everything else including work, clothes, and food be set aside. The busyness of things obscures our concentration on God. We must maintain a position of beholding Him, keeping our lives completely spiritual through and through. Let other things come and go as they will; let other people criticise us as they will; but never allow anything to obscure the life that ‘is hidden with Christ in God’ (Colossians 3:3). Never let a hurried lifestyle disturb the relationship of abiding in Him. This is an easy thing to allow, but we must guard against it. The most difficult lesson of the Christian life is learning how to continue ‘beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord’ (2 Corinthians 3:18).
23rd January
The psalmist says that we are to be obsessed by God (Psalm 25:12). The abiding awareness of the Christian life is to be God himself, not just thoughts about Him. The total being of our life inside and out is to be absolutely obsessed by the presence of God. A child’s awareness is so absorbed in his mother that although he is not consciously thinking of her, when a problem arises, the abiding relationship is that with the mother. In that same way, we are to ‘live and move and have our being’ in God (Acts 17:28). … And now we understand why our Lord so emphasised the sin of worrying. How can we dare to be so absolutely unbelieving when God totally surrounds us? … We rob ourselves of the miraculous, revealed truth of this abiding companionship with God. ‘God is our refuge’ (Psalm 46:1). Nothing can break through His shelter of protection.
2 June
If we do not apply our beliefs about God to the issues of everyday life, the vision God has given us will never be fulfilled. The only way to be obedient to ‘the heavenly vision’ (Acts 26:19) is to give our utmost for His highest – our best for His glory. This can be accomplished only when we make a determination to continually remember God’s vision. But the acid test is obedience to the vision in the details of our everyday life – sixty seconds out of every minute, and sixty minutes out of every hour, not just during times of personal prayer or public meetings.
11th March
Beware of any work for God that causes or allows you to avoid concentrating on Him. … A worker who lacks the serious controlling emphasis of concentration on God is apt to become overly burdened by her work. She is a slave to her own limits, having no freedom of her body, mind, or spirit. Consequently, she becomes burned out and defeated. … But the opposite case is equally true – once our concentration is on God, all the limits of our life are free and under the control and mastery of God alone. There is no longer any responsibility on you for the work. The only responsibility you have is to stay in living constant touch with God, and to see that you allow nothing to hinder your cooperation with Him. The freedom that comes after sanctification is the freedom of a child, and the things that used to hold your life down are gone. … We have no right to decide where we should be placed, or to have preconceived ideas as to what God is preparing us to do. God engineers everything; and wherever He places us, our one supreme goal remains to pour out our lives in wholehearted devotion to Him in that particular work. ‘Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might’ (Ecclesiastes 9:10).
23rd April
We are living in a time of tremendous enterprises, a time when we are trying to work for God, and that is where the trap is. Profoundly speaking, we can never work for God. Jesus, as the Master Builder, takes us over so that He may direct and control us completely for His enterprises and His building plans; and no one has any right to demand where she will be put to work.
7th May
Watch for the storms of God. The only way God plants His saints is through the whirlwind of His storms. … Let God send you out through His storm, and don’t go until He does. If you select your own spot to be planted, you will prove yourself to be an unproductive, empty pod. However, if you allow God to plant you, you will ‘bear much fruit’ (John 15:8).
11th March
God is not concerned about our plans; He doesn’t ask, ‘Do you want to go through this loss of a loved one, this difficulty, or this defeat?’ No, He allows these things for His own purpose. The things we are going through are either making us sweeter, better, and nobler men and women, or they are making us more critical and fault-finding, and more insistent on our own way. … If we will pray, regarding our own lives, ‘Your will be done’ (Matthew 26:42), then we will be encouraged and comforted by John 17, knowing that our Father is working according to His own wisdom, accomplishing what is best. When we understand God’s purpose, we will not become small-minded and cynical. Jesus prayed nothing less for us than absolute oneness with Himself, just as He was one with the Father. Some of us are far from this oneness; yet God will not leave us alone until we are one with Him.
22 May
One thing God constantly requires of us is a oneness with Jesus Christ. After being set apart through sanctification, we should discipline our lives spiritually to maintain this intimate oneness. When God gives you a clear determination of His will for you, all your striving to maintain that relationship by some particular method is completely unnecessary. All that is required is to live a natural life of absolute dependence on Jesus Christ. Never try to live your life with God in any other way than His way. And His way means absolute devotion to Him. Showing no concern for the uncertainties that lie ahead is the secret of walking with Jesus.
9th March
When our purpose is to seek God and to discover His will for us, daydreaming is right and acceptable. But when our inclination is to spend time daydreaming over what we have already been told to do, it is unacceptable and God’s blessing is never on it. God will take the initiative against this kind of daydreaming by prodding us to action. His instructions to us will be along the lines of this: ‘Don’t sit or stand there, just go!’ … If you are in love with someone, you don’t sit and daydream about that person all the time – you go and do something for them. That is what Jesus Christ expects us to do. Daydreaming after God has spoken is an indication that we do not trust him.
20th February
Are you prepared to let God take you into total oneness with Himself, paying no more attention to what you call the great things of life? Are you prepared to surrender totally and let go? The true test of abandonment or surrender is in refusing to say, ‘Well, what about this?’ Beware of your own ideas and speculations. The moment you allow yourself to think, ‘What about this?’ you show that you have not surrendered and that you do not really trust God. But once you do surrender, you will no longer think about what God is going to do. … If you are not there, it is either because of disobedience in your life or your refusal to be simple enough.
28th April
If I will do my duty, not for duty’s sake but because I believe God is engineering my circumstances, then at the very point of my obedience all of the magnificent grace of God is mine through the glorious atonement by the Cross of Christ.
15 June
The real meaning of eternal life is a life that can face anything it has to face without wavering. If we will take this view, life will become one great romance – a glorious opportunity of seeing wonderful things all the time. God is disciplining us to get us into this central place of power.
8 May
Header image: Splinter, 2020, by Sheona Beaumont.
